Banks and other mortgage servicers have made big bucks on the fees associated with delinquent loans, because of rules that one Federal Reserve Bank of Boston paper called a “perverse incentive to foreclose rather than modify.” This piece surveys the homeowners caught in purgatory – and why the servicers seemed to want to keep them there.

One of the first stories to shed light on a “foreclosure mill.” A Florida law firm tore through cases as quickly as possible, while frequently signing off on dodgy documents. The firm has since been shut down.

Homeowner Sarah Larson, a 33-year-old acupuncturist, tried to get a break on her ,055-a-month mortgage from Bank of America. The bank requested three important documents: bank statements, a utility bill and her death certificate. She replied: “I am not sending a death certificate because I am not deceased. I am currently still living."

Mortgage mess: Shredding the dream, Businessweek, October 2010How banks’ carelessness and underinvestment in back-end infrastructure contributed to paperwork errors and lost promissory notes that many argue worsened the housing crisis.

This piece investigates the prevalence of “robo-signing,” focusing on one company where a number of employees signed one woman’s name to thousands of documents because her name was short. None of the major banks agreed to talk to "60 Minutes."

From the beginning of the foreclosure mess, struggling homeowners often defaulted due to accounting and paperwork errors by the mortgage servicing industry. Servicers claimed they’d addressed the systemic problem. But as this piece shows, the “veterans of the foreclosure wars” tell a very different story.

Years before the crisis, a wealthy Florida businessman, who had lost his home in a questionable foreclosure, unearthed and compiled a “dossier of improprieties" on Fannie Mae. In retrospect, it looks like a blueprint for today’s crisis — and raises several questions about how deep and how far back our mortgage problems go.